“This LP helps toward understanding the way that Ayler has set about hedging-in his freedom, the restraints he devises for himself, his own particular struggle between form and content. Nobody would describe it as his best record - there is, for a start, little genuine rapport between Ayler and his accompanists - but it occupies a fascinating and perhaps a significant niche in jazz history.”

There is some dispute over whether there is a third volume of ‘The First Recordings’. The Jeff Schwartz biography lists 4 more titles - 2 alternate takes of ‘Softly As In A Morning Sunrise’, ‘Lover Man’ and ‘Everything Happens To Me’ - and credits ‘Raben 1989’ for the discographical information. The Mike Hames 1983 discography does not mention a third volume. According to Jan Strom of Ayler Records in Sweden, Bengt Nordström (the ‘producer’ of the session) told him that everything that was recorded had been issued on Volumes 1 and 2. This was confirmed by Mats Gustafsson who emailed me in 2012 with the following:“I was also talking with Bengt about a vol 3.and my understanding of that talk was:vol. 1 is as is.vol. 2 is the 3 pieces version (minus moanin).vol. 3 is vol 2 + moanin (the four track version).”Mats also said that the original versions of Volume 2 and 3 only existed as test pressings, between 5 and 10 of each. Also there may have been a Japanese version, which packaged all three volumes together.